Liberal Feminism

Liberals hold that freedom is a fundamental value, and that the just
state ensures freedom for individuals. Liberal feminists share this
view, and insist on freedom for women. There is disagreement among
liberals about what freedom means, and thus liberal feminism takes more
than one form. This entry discusses two basic kinds of liberal
feminism. Part one discusses what, in the philosophical literature, is
commonly called simply ‘liberal feminism.’ Liberal feminism
conceives of freedom as personal autonomy—living a life of one's
own choosing—and political autonomy—being co-author of
the conditions under which one lives. Part two discusses what is
commonly called ‘classical-liberal feminism,’ or sometimes
‘libertarian feminism’ (these terms will be used
interchangeably
here).[1]
Classical-liberal or libertarian feminism
conceives of freedom as freedom from coercive interference. While
liberal feminism is established in academic philosophy, much of the
classical-liberal or libertarian feminist literature is oriented
towards a more popular audience. (Note that there is dispute over
whether classical-liberal or libertarian feminism ought to be
considered a version of liberal feminism (see section 2.7)).

Liberal feminism conceives of freedom as personal
autonomy—living a life of one's own choosing—and political
autonomy—being co-author of the conditions under which one
lives. Liberal feminists hold that the exercise of personal autonomy
depends on certain enabling conditions that are insufficiently present
in women's lives, or that social arrangements often fail to respect
women's personal autonomy and other elements of women's flourishing.
They hold also that women's needs and interests are insufficiently
reflected in the basic conditions under which they live, and that
those conditions lack legitimacy because women are inadequately
represented in the processes of democratic self-determination. Liberal
feminists hold that autonomy deficits like these are due to the
“gender system” (Okin 1989, 89), or the patriarchal nature
of inherited traditions and institutions, and that the women's
movement should work to identify and remedy them. As the protection
and promotion of citizens' autonomy is the appropriate role of the
state on the liberal view, liberal feminists hold that the state can
and should be the women's movement's ally in promoting women's
autonomy. There is disagreement among liberal feminists, however,
about the role of personal autonomy in the good life, the appropriate
role of the state, and how liberal feminism is to be justified.

1.1.1 Procedural Accounts of Personal Autonomy

Liberal feminists hold that women should enjoy personal autonomy.
That is, they hold that women should live lives of their own choosing.
Some offer “procedural” accounts of personal autonomy
(MacKenzie and Stoljar discuss these, 1999, 13–19). These
accounts suggest that to say women should enjoy personal autonomy
means they are entitled to a broad range of autonomy-enabling
conditions. On this view, the women's movement should work to identify
and promote these conditions. Identifying these enabling conditions
requires careful attention to the particular ways in which autonomy
deficits are produced in diverse women's lives. Procedural accounts
avoid judging directly the substance of women's choices or the
arrangements that ensue. The following list of enabling conditions is
representative.

Being free of violence and the threat of violence: Violence
and the threat of violence violate women's dignity; they make women do
what others want or reduce women's sphere of activity to avoiding
harm. In some cases violence fractures the self and takes from women
their sense of self-respect (Brison 1997). The feminist literature on
violence against women documents the particular role that violence and
the threat of violence play in unfairly disempowering and limiting
women (Cudd 2006, 85–118).

Being free of the limits set by patriarchal paternalistic and
moralistic laws: Patriarchal paternalistic laws restrict women's
options on the grounds that such limits are in women's interest. Think
for example of laws that limit women's employment options on the
grounds that taking certain jobs is not in women's interest (Smith
2004). Patriarchal moralistic laws restrict women's options on the
grounds that certain options should not be available to women because
morality forbids women's choosing them. Think for example of laws that
prohibit or restrict prostitution or abortion, or laws that favor
certain kinds of sexual expression or family forms (Cornell 1998;
Brake 2004). Together, patriarchal paternalistic and moralistic laws
steer women into socially preferred ways of life. These are unfair
restrictions on women's choices, on the liberal feminist view, because
women's choices should be guided by their own sense of their
self-interest and by their own values. (But see Chambers (2008,
203–231) for liberal feminist uses of paternalism.)

Having access to options: On the liberal feminist view, women
are entitled to access to options (Alstott 2004, 52). Women's access
to options is frequently and unfairly restricted due to economic
deprivation, in particular due to the “feminization of
poverty” (Pearce 1978; see also Cudd 2006, 119–154). Other
sources of unfairly reduced options for women are stereotyping and sex
discrimination in education and employment (Smith 2004; Rhode 1997).
Such stereotyping and discrimination affects some racial, ethnic and
cultural groups in particularly pernicious ways. Liberal feminists
also point to the way cultural homogeneity unfairly limits women's
options (Cudd 2006, 234), for example when culture assigns identities
and social roles according to sex (Okin 1989, 170ff; Alstott 2004;
Meyers 2004; Cornell 1998, x; Chambers 2008).

Some emphasize the importance of internal, psychological enabling
conditions as well, for example the ability to assess one's own
preferences and imagine life otherwise (Meyers 2002, 168; Cudd
2006, 234–235; MacKenzie 1999). Without the ability to assess
the preferences on the basis of which one makes choices, and the
ability to imagine life otherwise, one can't meaningfully be said to
have options other than affirming the status quo (see also Chambers
2008, 263–4). These internal enabling conditions are related to
the external ones. Violence and the threat of violence, stereotyping
and discrimination, material deprivation, and cultural homogeneity all
can have the effect of closing down reflection and imagination.

On this view, the women's movement should work to identify and
promote autonomy-enabling conditions. Identifying these conditions
requires careful attention to the particular ways in which autonomy
deficits are produced in women's lives. On the liberal feminist view,
the state has an important role to play in promoting these conditions
(see sections 1.1.4, 1.2.1, and 1.2.2). But there is much that cannot
be done by the state (Cudd 2006, 223). For example, while the state
can refrain from blocking such endeavors, women themselves must
develop new “alternative emancipatory imagery” (Meyers
2002, 168), and fashion new ways of being a woman and new kinds of
relationships through experiments in living (Cudd 2006, 234; Cornell
1998).

Some critics argue that freedom is of limited value because, even
when enabling conditions like these are in place, women may choose
limiting and disadvantaging social arrangements. Some point to the
phenomenon of deformed preferences: when attractive options are
limited or arrangements unfair, people may develop preferences for
those limits or for less than their fair share (Nussbaum 1999a, 33,
50; Cudd 2006, 152). This phenomenon makes changing preferences
through increased freedom problematic, and leads some feminists to
reject theories that prioritize free choice (Yuracko 2003). Advocates
of procedural accounts of autonomy concede that the enabling
conditions do not rule out that a woman could choose, for example, to
undergo clitorectomy (Meyers 2004, 213) or become a pornographic model
(Cudd 2004, 58). As Ann Cudd explains, possibilities like these must
be accepted because liberal feminism values freedom and thus cannot
advocate direct “preference education” (Cudd 2004,
57). Liberal feminism must offer only a “… gradualist
approach. Individuals and groups will make various experiments in
living that we cannot now precisely imagine. They … will
sometimes go on a mistaken path” (57). But they must be freed up
to find their own way. As Diana Meyers explains, the moral imagination
of feminist theorists and activists is limited (as is everyone's);
they cannot know with certainty what substantive choices are
compatible with personal autonomy (Meyers 2004, 213). Moreover, one
should expect autonomous lives to take diverse forms in diverse
cultural contexts. On this view, “a morally defensible and
politically viable conception of autonomy for an era of global
feminism” must be agnostic about the content of women's choices
as long as they do not close off autonomy (205).

1.1.2 Fairness in Personal Relationships

Some liberal feminists hold that the social arrangements of
personal life should not only be freely chosen, but should be
characterized by fairness or justice. Jean Hampton draws on the
contractualist tradition in moral and political philosophy to describe
one way in which heterosexual intimate relationships often fail to be
fair or just (Hampton 1993). (For extended discussion of Hampton's
feminism, see Abbey 2011, 120–151. For more on feminist uses of
contractualism, see section 1.2.1.)

On Hampton's view, a personal relationship is fair only if both
parties to it could “reasonably accept the distribution of costs
and benefits (that is, the costs and benefits that are not themselves
side effects of any affective or duty-based tie between us) if it were
the subject of an informed, unforced agreement in which we think of
ourselves as motivated solely by self-interest” (Hampton 1993,
240). Of course, many women choose to enter or remain in relationships
in part because of affective benefits; for example women often get
satisfaction from satisfying others or fulfilling a duty. Why set
aside these affective benefits, as Hampton recommends, when evaluating
the fairness of a relationship? Hampton does not set them aside out of
a conviction that a woman's affective nature is not part of her
essential self. Nor does she set them aside out of a conviction that
this aspect of a woman's nature is not valuable. (For criticism of
Hampton, see Sample 2002.) Her test sets them aside because affective
benefits of relationships are not received from the other;
they are benefits that flow from one's own nature (Radzik 2005,
51). Thus while they may, and probably should, figure in a woman's
overall decision about whether to enter or remain in a particular
relationship, Hampton believes they should not figure in the
evaluation of a relationship's fairness. As Linda Radzik explains in
her defense of Hampton, a relationship is fair or just if the benefits
that flow from each to the other are on par, that
is, if each gives as much as she gets (51). When one party gets from
the other significantly more than he gives, he is denying the other
her legitimate entitlement to reciprocation.

This test formalizes an important insight of the women's movement:
personal relationships, in particular traditional heterosexual
relationships, are often unfair to women, indeed often exploit women's
tendency to care about others. Injustice of this sort is not uncommon.
Thus Hampton's test invites criticism of a wide swath of human social
life (Sample 2002, 271). But Hampton does not call on women to cease
valuing others' satisfaction or the fulfillment of duty (Hampton 1993,
227). Instead, she calls on the women's movement to cultivate in women
and men a sensitivity and an aversion to this kind of injustice, and to
develop remedies.

Procedural accounts of personal autonomy (see section 1.1.1) do not
require that relationships be just in the way Hampton recommends.
According to procedural accounts, it is possible that a choice to enter
or remain in a personal relationship in which one gives more than she
gets from the other can be autonomous. Therefore, according to
procedural accounts, liberal feminists should focus on ensuring that
women are not pressured into or unable to exit them.

To be sure, Hampton's account of justice in personal relationships
can be a resource to women and men reflecting on their own preferences.
It invites reflection on how one's own preferences affect the
distribution of benefits and burdens within a relationship. Also, moral
criticism of relationships that exploit women's preferences reminds us
that relationships can be otherwise (because ought implies can). This
reminder enhances personal autonomy by broadening the imagination. Thus
procedural accounts of personal autonomy can include Hampton's test,
not as definitive of the acceptability of social arrangements, but as a
contribution to the kind of reflection about the good life on which the
personal autonomy of individuals depends.

1.1.3 Personal Autonomy and Human Flourishing

Martha Nussbaum proposes an account of the good life that has
“at its heart, a profoundly liberal idea … the idea of the
citizen as a free and dignified human being, a maker of choices”
(Nussbaum 1999a, 46). Echoing procedural accounts of personal autonomy
(section 1.1.1), Nussbaum explains: “If one cares about people's
powers to choose a conception of the good, then one must care about the
rest of the form of life that supports those powers” (45). But
for Nussbaum personal autonomy is merely one of the “major human
functionings” (43) which define “a good human life”
(42). These functionings include, among other things, bodily health and
integrity, affiliation, and political participation (41–42). To be
sure, personal autonomy, or in Nussbaum's words “practical
reason,” is a good that “suffuses all the other
functions” (44). But personal autonomy is not prioritized. A good
life is one in which one is able to enjoy all of the major human
functionings, that is, to flourish.

Nussbaum's approach takes on the problem of deformed preferences
(see section 1.1.1) directly. To be sure, some may choose lives that do
not include the actual exercise of some of the functionings—an
ascetic may choose to compromise bodily health. But, Nussbaum explains,
one must be able to function in each of these ways. Social
arrangements are to be criticized if they render their participants
unable to function in the valued ways regardless of their
preferences (50). The women's movement should sensitize women and men
to the injustice of denying women the ability to function in these
valued ways, identify arrangements that are unjust to women by paying
careful attention to diverse women's lives, and recommend remedies.
Nussbaum holds that her account is compatible with global moral
pluralism and thus may function as a foundation for a global feminism
(Nussbaum 1999a, 40).

Nussbaum's “capabilities approach” may be compared with
procedural accounts of autonomy (see section 1.1.1). Procedural
accounts suggest that the women's movement should work to protect and
promote women's ability to live lives of their own choosing by
identifying particular autonomy deficits in women's lives and promoting
the conditions that enable autonomy. These approaches avoid directly
judging the substance of the choices women make or the arrangements
that result. They leave it to individuals and groups to fashion new,
diverse, non-oppressive ways of life. The list of enabling conditions
for personal autonomy is not unlike Nussbaum's list of human
functionings. But advocates of procedural approaches may worry that the
goal of the women's movement, according to the capabilities approach,
is to bring to women a particular way of life, namely one in
which women can function in these ways, instead of freeing women up to
find their own way (Cudd 2004, 50). As Drucilla Cornell, an advocate of
a procedural approach explains, “social equality [should be]
redefined so as to serve freedom” (Cornell 1998, xii) because
“there is nothing more fundamental for a human being” (17;
see also Cudd 2004, 51–52). Procedural accounts of autonomy can include
Nussbaum's approach, not as definitive of the kinds of lives women
should live, but as an important contribution to the kind of reflection
on the good life on which personal autonomy depends. (There is a large
literature on Nussbaum's liberal feminism; for liberal feminist
discussion, see for example Abbey 2011 152–205; and Robeyns 2007.)

1.1.4 Personal Autonomy and the State

There is substantial agreement among liberal feminists that the
gender system, or the patriarchal nature of inherited traditions and
institutions, plays an important role in perpetuating morally
objectionable deficits in personal autonomy in women's lives, and that
the state can and should take action to remedy them. There is also
substantial agreement among liberal feminists concerning what the state
should do. There is disagreement about some hard cases, however, that
pit liberal values against one another.

Liberal feminists hold that the state must effectively protect women
from violence, regardless of where that violence takes place (Cudd
2006, 85–118, 209; Rhode 1997, 1193–95). They also hold that sexist
paternalistic and moralistic laws are an unjust use of state power.
Such laws place control over women's lives in the hands of others and
steer women into preferred ways of life. Laws restricting access to
abortion are of particular import in this context because they take an
extremely momentous choice away from women, and together with the
cultural assignment of caregiving duties to women, steer women into the
social role of mother. Women must have a legal right to abortion and
meaningful access to abortion services. In addition, liberal feminists
hold that the state must not grant preferential treatment to particular
family forms (Brake 2004, 293; Lloyd 1995, 1328; McClain 2006, 60).
Some argue that this means giving gay and lesbian partnerships the same
recognition currently available to heterosexuals (McClain 2006, 6;
Hartley and Watson 2011). Others argue for removing marriage's
privileged legal status altogether or treating it legally more like
other associations (Case 2006; Metz 2010).

Liberals tend to reject laws prohibiting prostitution. They advocate
instead the legal regulation of the sex trade prioritizing women's
safety and women's control over their own working conditions (Cornell
1998, 57; Nussbaum 2002, 90). They support the right to collective
bargaining to secure decent wages and working conditions (Cornell 1998,
57; Cudd 2006, 211), as well as a guaranteed minimum income (Cudd 2006,
154). They also support laws against sex discrimination in education,
employment, and public accommodations. According to liberal feminists,
the refusal to hire or promote a woman or do business with her because
she is a woman is a morally objectionable limit on her options. So are
workplaces that are hostile to women. Liberal feminists argue that laws
prohibiting sexual harassment, and requiring affirmative action and
comparable worth policies are often called for to remedy past and
ongoing sex discrimination (Williams 2000, 253).

Liberal feminists hold also that a significant source of women's
reduced options is the structure of the workplace, which assumes that
workers are free of caregiving responsibilities (Okin 1989, 176;
Williams 2000). Women, and increasingly men, do not fit this model. The
effect of not fitting the model is dramatic. As Anne L. Alstott
explains: “Caretakers at every income level have fewer options
than noncaretakers at the same income level” (Alstott 2004, 97).
She continues: “I am worried that child-rearing too dramatically
contracts the options among which mothers can choose” (23).
Alstott and others argue that the state must ensure that the socially
essential work of providing care to dependents does not unreasonably
interfere with the personal autonomy of caregivers. Policies proposed
to ensure sufficient personal autonomy for caregivers include parental
leave, state subsidized, high quality day care, and flexible work
schedules (Cudd 2006, 228; Okin 1989, 175). Some recommend financial
support for caregivers (Alstott 2004, 75ff), others suggest
guaranteeing a non-wage-earning spouse one half of her wage-earning
spouse's paycheck (Okin 1989, 181).

But workplaces fail to accommodate the socially essential caregiving
work of their employees in various ways. Thus Joan Williams has argued
for legal recognition of the right to not be discriminated against in
employment on the basis of one's caregiving responsibilities. Williams
recommends, if necessary, legal action alleging failure to recognize
this right as an incentive to employers to accommodate caregivers
(Williams 2000, 274).

There is disagreement among liberal feminists about some hard cases
that pit liberal values against one another. Liberal feminists tend to
reject legal limits on pornography (Cornell 1998, 57–58). But some hold
that arguments for restricting violent pornography are not unreasonable
(Laden 2003, 148–149; Watson 2007, 469; for what such a not
unreasonable argument might look like, see Eaton 2007), and that the
best arguments for freedom of expression fail to show that it should
not be limited (Brison 1998). Indeed some argue that violent
pornography can undermine the autonomy of viewers (Scoccia 1996) and
the status of women as equal citizens (Spaulding 1988–89).

Other hard cases concern the role of the state in family life.
Family life has dramatic effects on the personal autonomy of its adult
members. Assuming the role of caregiver, for example, dramatically
contracts women's options. On a liberal feminist view, the state has an
interest in ensuring that family life does not undermine women's
personal autonomy. Some hold that the state should promote justice in
the family—for example, the sharing of paid and unpaid labor by
its adult members (Okin 1989, 171). Others hold that the state may not
be guided by a substantive ideal of family life (Alstott 2004, 114; see
also Nussbaum 2000, 279–280; and Wolf-Devine 2004). (See section 1.2.1
for more discussion of this issue).

Girls' participation in families is, especially in the early years,
nonvoluntary. The family affects the development of girls' sense of
self-worth, as well as their preferences, and the capacities, like the
capacity for reflection and imagination, on which their ability to live
lives of their own choosing depends (Okin 1989, 97). Liberal feminists
hold that the state must protect and promote the development of
autonomy capacities in children, especially girls. For example they
hold that child-marriage should be legally prohibited (McClain 2006,
79); girls should have access to abortion without parental consent or
notification (Rhode 1994, 1204); girls must receive a formal education
free of sexist stereotyping, including instruction in the legal
equality of women (McClain 2006, 81; Lloyd 1995, 1332), including
autonomy-promoting sex education (McClain 2006, 57–58), and ensuring
that girls are prepared to be economically independent (Lloyd 1995,
1332). Beyond this some hold that girls' interest in developing
autonomy capacities requires that families be internally just, that is,
that there be an equal division of paid and unpaid labor between
adults, so that families are not characterized by “dependence and
domination” (Okin 1989, 99–100; see also Follesdal 2005). Others
are not convinced that there is a necessary connection between this
kind of justice in families and the development of girls' autonomy
capacities (Lloyd 1995, 1335–1343), and hold that the state may not be
guided by a substantive ideal of family life (Alstott 2004, 114; see
also Nussbaum 2000a, 279–280; and Wolf-Devine 2004). (See section 1.2.1
for more discussion of this issue).

Some liberal feminists emphasize the importance of political
autonomy, that is, being co-author of the conditions under which one
lives. Some use contractualist political theory to argue that the state
should ensure that the basic structure of society satisfies principles
of justice that women, as well as men, could endorse. Others argue that
the democratic legitimacy of the basic conditions under which citizens
live depends on the inclusion of women in the processes of public
deliberation and electoral politics.

1.2.1 Distributive Justice

Some liberal feminists, inspired by John Rawls' contractualist
liberal theory of justice (Rawls 1971; 1993), argue that the state
should ensure that the basic structure of society distributes the
benefits and burdens of social cooperation fairly, that is, in a manner
that women as well as men could endorse (Alstott 2004; Baehr 2004;
Bojer 2002; Lloyd 1998; McClain 2006; Okin 1989; Thompson 1993; for an
overview of feminist responses to Rawls, see Abbey 2013). They argue
that the basic structure currently distributes benefits and burdens
unfairly, in part due to the gender system, or the patriarchal nature
of inherited traditions and institutions.

As Rawls puts it, the basic structure of society is: “The way
in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights
and duties and determine the division of advantages from social
cooperation. By major institutions I understand the political
constitution and the principal economic and social
arrangements…Competitive markets and the monogamous family [are]
examples of major social institutions… The basic structure is
the primary subject of justice because its effects are so profound and
present from the start. The intuitive notion here is that this
structure contains various social positions and that men born into
different positions have different expectations of life determined, in
part, by the political system as well as by economic and social
circumstances. In this way the institutions of society favor certain
starting places over others” (Rawls 1971, 6–7).

Rawls argues that the fairness of the basic structure of society may
be assessed by asking what principles representatives of citizens
(parties) would choose to determine the distribution of primary goods
in society if they were behind a “veil of ignorance” (Rawls
1971, 12). The veil of ignorance blocks from the parties knowledge of
their place in society: for example their socio-economic status,
religion, and sex. (Rawls does not include sex in A Theory of
Justice (Rawls 1971), but adds it in “Fairness to
Goodness” (Rawls 1975, 537).) Susan Okin proposes we “take
seriously both the notion that those behind the veil of ignorance do
not know what sex they are and the requirement that the family and the
gender system, as basic social institutions, are to be subject to
scrutiny” (Okin 1989, 101).

Rawls argues that parties behind the veil of ignorance would choose
two principles: a liberty principle providing for the “most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a
similar system of liberty for all;” and a principle of equality
requiring equality of opportunity, and permitting inequalities only if
they are to the benefit of the least well off (Rawls 1971,
302–303).

Okin argues that the “gender system” violates both the
liberty and equality of opportunity principles because by effectively
assigning roles to citizens according to sex it circumvents citizens'
“free choice of occupation” (Okin 1989, 103). On Okin's
view, this means that in a just society “gender could no longer
form a legitimate part of the social structure, whether inside or
outside the family” (103). None of the institutions of the basic
structure, including the family, could assign roles according to
sex.[2]
It
is common to argue that the state, educational
institutions, and workplaces should not assign roles according to sex.
But Okin argues that this applies to the family as well. Gender
blindness must play the same role in the family that it plays in these
institutions. In Okin's words, there must be “congruence”
between the principles that govern these institutions and those that
govern family life (21). That is, families must be just.

Okin offers a second argument to support the claim that families
must be just. Rawls explains that a society based on his two principles
of justice can be stable because within it citizens develop a sense of
justice (Rawls 1971, 453ff). For our purposes consider that citizens
must develop the conviction that citizens generally are due the rights
of equal citizenship. Okin argues that when children are raised within
unjust families, families which lack “equality and
reciprocity,” and are characterized by “dependence and
domination,” they are not likely to develop the requisite sense
of justice (Okin 1989, 99–100; see also McClain 2006, 73–84). Instead,
girls and boys and may grow to believe that women are not entitled to
equal citizenship. Therefore, if the society governed by Rawls' two
principles of justice is to be stable, families must be just.

What can and should the state do to ensure that gender no longer
forms a “part of the social structure, whether inside or outside
the family” (Okin 1989, 103)? Okin endorses measures for the
workplace, for example state subsidized daycare, parental leave, and
flextime (176, 186). These accommodations make it possible for women
and men to choose against traditional roles. She also recommends
protecting from vulnerability those women who do choose traditional
roles by making them entitled to half of their spouse's paycheck (181).
But Okin does not think that the state should stop at increasing the
voluntariness of women's choices and compensating for disadvantage. She
argues instead that the state may and should promote a particular ideal
of family life. She tells us that the state should “encourage and
facilitate the equal sharing by men and women of paid and unpaid work,
or productive and reproductive labor” (171). Accommodations by
employers may be understood, then, not only as a way of making options
available to women, but as a way of encouraging the sharing of paid and
unpaid work by spouses. Another way the state may encourage such
egalitarianism is through autonomy-promoting education, especially for
girls (177). To be sure, Okin argues that what is desired is a
“future in which all will be likely to choose this mode
of life” (171, my emphasis). But the fact that many people
currently don't choose it does not mean, for Okin, that it is not an
appropriate goal of state action (172). (There is a substantial
literature on Okin's use of Rawls' theory of justice. See for example
Reich and Satz 2009. See also Liberal Feminism Works.)

Other feminists apply contractualist political philosophy inspired
by Rawls to the problem of justice for women but draw slightly
different conclusions from Okin. S.A. Lloyd (1998), Anne L. Alstott
(2004) and Linda C. McClain (2006) each argue that a basically Rawlsian
contractualist argument supports the claim that the current
disadvantages women suffer as a result of their shouldering a
disproportionate share of the burdens of social reproduction must be
remedied by state action. All three endorse many of Okin's policy
proposals (Lloyd 1995, 1332; 1998, 218; Alstott 2004). But they reject
Okin's claim that the state should promote a particular substantive
ideal of family life (Lloyd 1995, 1340–1341; Lloyd 1998, 218; McClain
2006, 78). Alstott writes: “The egalitarian family is, even in
principle, a troubling ideal. Strictly equal sharing seems unduly
constraining, not merely because families today deviate from the idea,
but because free people might want to organize their lives
differently” (Alstott 2004, 113). Other liberal feminists have
voiced similar concerns. Ann Cudd worries that state action intended to
promote gender fairness and foster women's autonomy could impose a
homogenizing conception of the good life, and stifle the very
reinventions of self and experiments in living that women's liberation
requires (Cudd 2006, 209, 223; see also Wolf-Devine 2004). Elizabeth
Anderson writes: “The plurality of conceptions of the good that
are likely to survive in a world in which the state has done all it can
be reasonably and justly expected to do will include a host of
unreasonable conceptions of the good, some of which may well be
patriarchal. In the face of such injustices, liberals counsel feminists
to redirect their claims from the state to those promulgating such
unreasonable conceptions of the good, and to redirect their activism
from a focus on state action to other domains, including civil society,
churches, and the family. I think this counsel is wise, which is why I
am a liberal feminist” (Anderson 2009, 131; see also
141–144).

A substantial liberal feminist literature engages this tension
between associational liberty and possible state action aimed at
remedying the way the current distribution of the burdens of
reproduction disadvantages women. Much of this literature draws on both
the liberal tradition within feminism and feminist work on caregiving
(Barclay 2013; Bhandary 2010; Brighouse and Wright 2008; Engster 1995,
2010; Gheaus 2009, 2012; Gornick and Meyers 2008; Hartley and Watson
2012; Lloyd 1995, 1998; Robeyns 2007; Gheaus and Robeyns 2011; Wright
2008).

1.2.2 Public Deliberation and Electoral Politics

Some liberal feminists, who emphasize the importance of political
autonomy—that women be co-authors of the conditions under which
they live—focus in particular on participation in the processes
of democratic self-determination. These processes include both
political deliberation in the many arenas of public political
discourse, and electoral politics. Liberal feminists hold that the
conditions under which women live lack legitimacy because women are
inadequately represented in these processes. They hold that this
political autonomy deficit is, in large part, due to the “gender
system” (Okin 1989, 89), or the patriarchal nature of inherited
traditions and institutions, and that the women's movement should work
to identify and remedy it.

Attempts to increase women's participation in public deliberation
and electoral politics confront a vicious circle of women's exclusion.
The gender system leads to women's being underrepresented in
influential forums of public deliberation, including in elected
law-making bodies. For example women have less free time to engage in
public deliberation because of the double-burden they carry of paid and
unpaid labor; sex stereotyping leads many to think that women
(especially women from particular ethnic and cultural groups) are less
capable of leadership than men; the behavior called for in agonistic
public deliberation and electoral politics is understood to be
masculine; issues of particular interest to women are seen as personal
and not political issues; women lack power in the many institutions
(like churches, universities, and think tanks) that influence political
debate, etc. But when women are underrepresented in these forums and
law-making bodies, it is unlikely that the justice of the gender system
will become the subject of public conversation or its dismantling a
target of legislative action.

Some liberal feminists explore ways to escape this vicious circle.
Because women are excluded from important forums of public
deliberation and electoral politics in complex ways, remedies must
address a variety of problems. Justice in the distribution of benefits
and burdens in society would go some way towards enabling women to
access forums of public debate on equal terms with men (Okin 1989,
104). But cultural change is necessary as well if stereotypes about
women's abilities are not to interfere with their participation, if
women's needs and interests are to be understood as legitimate claims
on democratic power, and if men's dominance in institutions of
influence is to be overcome. Seyla Benhabib argues that the women's
movement, along with other new social movements like the gay and
lesbian liberation movement, has begun this work (Benhabib
1992). While much of this change is cultural and must come about
through civic action, the state has a role to play. Linda McClain
argues that all children must receive civic education—to equip
them for democratic citizenship—including instruction in women's
equality (McClain 2006, 81). She also argues that the state may use
its persuasive power to put traditionally excluded issues, like
violence against women or the dilemma of balancing work and family, on
the agenda for public deliberation (78).

Others take on the vicious circle of women's exclusion by
recommending legal mechanisms for the inclusion of women in electoral
politics (see Rhode 1994, 1205–1208; Peters 2006; Phillips 1991). Some
suggest that legal mechanisms for including those who have been
systematically excluded may be justified as remedies for the unjust
disproportionate political power enjoyed by others (Phillips 2004,
6–10). Suggested mechanisms include targets or quotas for women (and
other underrepresented groups) on party slates, or proportional
representation in elected bodies. Karen Green, for example, argues for
“guaranteed equal representation of both sexes in
parliament” (Green 2006). There is diversity of opinion, however,
among liberal feminists about the justice and efficacy of such
mechanisms (Peters 2006; see also Rhode 1994, 1205).

We can distinguish between comprehensive liberal feminisms and
political liberal feminisms (or feminist political liberalisms). The
distinction between political and comprehensive doctrines in political
theory is due to Rawls (1993) but has been taken up by some liberal
feminists in recent years. (For explicit discussion of the distinction
in liberal feminism, see for example Abbey 2007; 2011, 72–82, 226–247;
Baehr 2008; 2013; Chambers 2008, 159–201; Enslin 2003; Hartley and
Watson 2010; Lloyd 1998; Neufeld 2009; Neufeld and Schoelandt 2013;
Nussbaum 1999b, 108; 2000b, 76 fn38; Okin 1994; 1999, 129–130; and
Watson 2007).

Comprehensive liberal feminisms are grounded in moral doctrines.
Liberal feminisms typically give accounts of how state power should be
used to feminist ends; so a comprehensive liberal feminism typically
includes the claim that state power should be used to some particular
feminist ends because some moral doctrine requires it. A comprehensive
liberal feminism typically gives an account of how part of
associational life—beyond what is traditionally understood as
‘the political’—should be arranged, for example
that the family should foster women's and girls' personal autonomy, or
that domestic associations should distribute benefits and burdens
fairly. Some comprehensive liberal feminisms focus primarily on
associational life and only peripherally on the role of the state.
Comprehensive liberal feminist accounts of how associational life
generally should be arranged may, but need not, include the claim that
the state ought to enforce such arrangements. There is nothing about
grounding in a moral doctrine that forces a comprehensive liberal
feminism to include the claim that the state should enforce liberal
feminist values outside of what is traditionally understood as
‘the political.’ To be sure, comprehensive liberal
feminisms typically do this. The reason is that comprehensive liberal
feminisms typically reject the traditional public/private distinction,
and hold that the political justice liberalism promises for women can
be realized only when associational life—the family, for
example—does not undermine girls' and women's personal
autonomy, or distribute benefits and burdens unfairly. (But note that
to reject the traditional public/private distinction is not to reject
any and all such distinctions.)

Political liberal feminisms (or feminist political liberalisms) are
accounts of how state power should be used to feminist ends that are
grounded in public political values. Public political values are not
the particular values of any one moral doctrine; they are values that
are shared by the many reasonable comprehensive moral doctrines
citizens hold (Rawls 1993, 227–230). Advocates of political liberal
feminism hold that state power is used justly when supported by values
that are endorsable by all reasonable citizens. Like comprehensive
liberal feminists, political liberal feminists typically reject the
traditional public/private distinction. Thus they typically hold that
public values can justify using state power to compensate for, or even
to dismantle, patriarchal (and other disadvantaging) hierarchies that
are pervasive in associational life. (Again, to reject the traditional
public/private distinction is not to reject any and all such
distinctions.)

Among comprehensive liberal feminists we may count Jean Hampton,
Drucilla Cornell, Ann Cudd, Susan Okin, and Clare Chambers. Hampton's
feminist contractualist account of justice in personal relationships
(see section 2.2.1) is explicitly grounded in Kant's moral philosophy
(Hampton 1993, 241; on Hampton, see Abbey 2011, 120–151). Cornell's
psychoanalytically informed liberal feminism (Cornell 2003) focuses on
the right to intimate and sexual self-determination and is also
grounded in Kant's moral theory (Cornell 1998, 17–18; see also
Thurschwell 1999, 771–772). Cudd explains that her liberal feminist
account of oppression as harm is grounded in a “background moral
theory,” namely “a liberal contractarian view of the sort
developed by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, or the more
libertarian version of David Gauthier in Morals by
Agreement” (Cudd 2006, 231). Okin's liberal feminism draws
on Rawls' A Theory of Justice, which Rawls himself claims is a
comprehensive liberalism (Okin 1999, 129; Rawls 1993, xvii). (But note
that Okin claims hers is “in between” comprehensive and
political liberalism (Okin 1999, 129–130).) Chambers' liberal feminism
– which explores the relationship between social construction and
choice—may also be counted among comprehensive liberal
feminisms as it is grounded in personal autonomy as a moral value
(Chambers 2008).

Among political liberal feminists we may count S.A. Lloyd, Linda
McClain, Martha Nussbaum, Christie Hartley, Lori Watson, and Amy Baehr.
Lloyd constructs an argument based on public political values to the
conclusion that “women's disproportionate burden in social
reproduction [must] be eliminated” (Lloyd 1998, 214). McClain
argues that sex equality is a public and constitutional value (2006,
60; see also 22–23, 60–62, and 76) which requires state opposition to
relations of subordination and domination in the family (62); state
support for autonomy in intimate matters (22); and support for the
development of autonomy capacities in children, especially girls (109).
Nussbaum also presents her “capabilities approach” as a
political, and not a comprehensive, liberalism (see section 1.1.3.).
The capabilities list, she argues, can be shared by citizens holding a
wide variety of comprehensive conceptions of the good life, and thus
should be able to function as a foundation for a political liberalism
(Nussbaum 2000b, 76 fn38). Hartley and Watson argue that public
deliberation based on shared values is incompatible with
“pervasive social hierarchies” (Hartley and Watson 2010,
8). As Watson puts it, “a central task of public reason
arguments, in the context of social hierarchy and inequality, is to
expose the ways in which background conditions (inequalities) undermine
the necessary conditions for reasonable deliberations among citizens to
occur” (Watson 2007, 470).

Political liberal feminists suggest some advantages of political
liberal feminism over comprehensive liberal feminism. According to S.A.
Lloyd, “it's true that confining the argument to talk of socially
recognized values requires operating with one hand tied behind one's
back, so to speak. Conclusions that would be quite easy to reach from
stronger feminist principles, or other comprehensive principles, are
much harder to reach using the sparse … toolbox [of public
reason]” (Lloyd 1998, 210). But if we can reach feminist
conclusions on these sparse grounds, they will be much more difficult
to reject. Amy Baehr suggests that arguments to feminist ends from
public political values can move the political community toward a more
reasonable understanding of those values (Baehr 2013; see also Rawls
1993, 227). (For further examples of political liberal feminism, see
Neufeld (2009) and Neufeld and Schoelandt (2013).)

Comprehensive liberal feminists argue that political liberalism (and
thus political liberal feminism) will not be adequately feminist if it
is grounded in the public values of a still-patriarchal society (Abbey
2007; Chambers 2008, 159–201; Enslin 2003; Okin 1993; see also
Munoz-Darde 1998, 347).

Liberal feminism is part of, and thus finds its roots in, the larger
tradition of liberal political philosophy; thus we see much liberal
feminist work inspired by Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and John
Rawls (and other figures in this tradition). But liberal feminism
shares with feminist political philosophy generally a concern with
understanding the “gender system” (Okin 1989, 89), that is,
the patriarchal nature of inherited traditions and institutions, so
that it might recommend a remedy. To get a good picture of that system,
liberal feminists draw broadly from the rich tradition of feminist
theorizing. For example, some liberal feminists draw on radical
feminist insights into the nature of violence against women (Nussbaum
1999a) and into the nature of gender identity (Chambers 2008m 43–80);
some draw on psychoanalytic feminist theory (Meyers 2002; Cornell
2003); some on socialist feminist work on women's exploitation in
the home (Anderson 2004; Gheaus 2008); and some on feminist theories of
care (Alstott 2004; Bhandary 2010).

1.5.1 Liberal Criticism

Some argue that liberal feminisms run the risk of being
insufficiently liberal. Measures intended to promote gender fairness
and the autonomy of women could end up unreasonably hindering autonomy
(Cudd 2006, 223). Some argue that Susan Okin's claim that the state
should be guided by an egalitarian ideal of family life is an example
of such a measure (see section 1.2.1). Other measures recommended by
liberal feminists that some hold may be illiberal include quotas on
party slates or in elected bodies (Peters 2006) (see section 1.2.2),
and bans on violent pornography (see section 1.2.4).

Classical liberals or libertarians are critical of liberal feminisms
because, on their view, liberalism cannot support the claim that the
right of some against coercive interference may be violated in order to
promote the autonomy capacities of others, such as we find in
affirmative action programs, or in the substantial taxation that would
be necessary to fund the social programs liberal feminists endorse
(Epstein 2002; Tomasi 2009).

1.5.2 Multicultural Criticism

Multicultural critics of liberal feminism suggest that liberal
feminism's emphasis on autonomy and fairness in personal and
associational life runs the risk of elevating one particular
comprehensive conception of the good life over the many others found in
multicultural societies (Shachar 2009; for discussion, see Okin
1999).

1.5.3 Conservative Criticism

Conservatives hold that reformers can do more harm than good when
they undermine the institutions and norms which, while surely offending
in many ways, also serve as the foundation for many people's well-being
(Muller 1997; see also Fox-Genovese 1996). Such conservatives worry
about the radical implications of liberal feminism, its willingness to
put women's autonomy ahead of institutions and norms on which many
people rely for their well-being. Ann Cudd suggests that the expansion
of opportunity and equality promised by liberal feminism “makes
us all better off” (Cudd 2006, 237). Conservatives encourage us
to consider also the loss that is in liberation.

1.5.4 Feminist Criticism

Some comprehensive liberal feminists (see section 2.3) argue that
the public political values on which feminist political liberalism
relies render the latter insufficiently critical of precisely those
hierarchies and forms of disadvantage liberal feminism aims to
criticize and undermine (Abbey 2007; Baehr 1996; Chambers 2008, 12,
159–201; Okin 1994).

Some nonliberal feminists argue that even comprehensive liberalism
will be insufficiently critical. Several reasons are offered. Some
argue that feminist political theory must rely on a much more robust
feminist ideal of the good life than liberal feminism provides (Yuracko
2003). Some argue that liberal feminism's commitment to moral
individualism and ideal theory renders it incapable of identifying and
criticizing the oppression of women (Schwarzman 2010). Some argue that
liberal feminism's focus on the distribution of benefits and burdens in
society neglects power relations (Young 1990, 37) and the eroticization
of domination and subordination that are the true linchpins of the
gender system (MacKinnon 1987; 1989). Still others argue that liberal
feminism inherits from liberalism a focus on the autonomous individual
and is, for this reason, incapable of accounting sufficiently for the
fact of human dependency, the value of being cared for, and the role
that caregiving plays in a good society (Held 1987; Kittay 1999).

Classical-liberal feminism or libertarian feminism
(these terms will be used interchangeably
here—see fn. 1)
conceives of freedom as freedom from coercive interference. It holds
that women, as well as men, have a right to such freedom due to their
status as self-owners. It holds that coercive state power is justified
only to the extent necessary to protect the right to freedom from
coercive interference. Equity feminists are classical-liberal
or libertarian feminists who hold that, in societies like the United
States, the only morally significant source of oppression of women is
the state. They hold that feminism's political role is to bring an end
to laws that limit women's liberty in particular, but also to laws that
grant special privileges to women. Some equity feminists see a
nonpolitical role for feminism, helping women to benefit from their
freedom by developing beneficial character traits or strategies for
success, or navigating among their increasing options. Other equity
feminists are socially conservative and argue that, while the state
should not enforce them, traditional values function as bulwarks
against state power and produce independent and self-restraining
citizens. Cultural libertarian feminists are classical-liberal
or libertarian feminists who hold that the culture of societies like
the United States is patriarchal and a significant source of oppression
of women. They hold that the patriarchal culture and the state are
complementary systems of oppression. Cultural libertarian feminists
hold that much of the oppression women suffer today is noncoercive,
however, and thus should not be met with state remedies but with a
nonviolent movement for feminist social change.

2.1 Self-Ownership and Women's Rights

Classical liberalism or libertarianism holds that women and men are
self-owners capable of acquiring property rights over things. As such
women and men, equally, have the right to freedom from coercive
interference with their person and property. This right to freedom from
coercive interference consists in, at least, rights to freedom of
conscience and expression, freedom to control what happens to one's
body, freedom of association, freedom to acquire, control and transfer
property, freedom of contract, as well as the right to compensation
when rights are violated. The state's role is, exclusively, to protect
citizens from coercive interference by protecting their rights. Some
reject even a limited state, however, holding that nongovernmental
means of protecting rights are to be preferred.

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminists hold that the right to
freedom from coercive interference has powerful implications for
women's lives. It implies that women have the right to freedom in
intimate, sexual and reproductive matters. This includes sexual
autonomy (the right to engage in sexual activity of one's choosing
including the buying and selling of sex (Almodovar 2002; Lehrman 1997,
23), and the right to defend oneself against sexual aggression,
including the use of firearms (Stevens et al. 2002)); freedom of
expression (the right to appear in, publish, and consume pornography
free of censorship (McElroy 1995; Strossen 2000)); freedom of intimate
association (the right to partner or enter into a private marriage
contract (McElroy 1991a, 20)); and reproductive freedom (the right to
use birth control, have an abortion (on the minority of pro-life
libertarians see Tabarrok 2002, 157), and buy and sell bodily
reproductive services, for example as in surrogate motherhood (Lehrman
1997, 22; McElroy 2002b; Paul 2002)). Freedom from interference with
person and property also means that women have the right to engage in
economic activity in a free market, entering contracts, and acquiring,
controlling and transferring property free of sexist state limits
(Epstein 1992; Kirp, Yudolf, and Franks 1986, 204).

One way to characterize the wrong involved when states fail to
recognize these rights of women is as a failure to respect women's
right to be treated as men's equal, or the right to equal treatment
under the law. To be sure, classical-liberal feminists hold that the
law should not treat women and men differently. But this is because
they believe everyone has the same rights, not because they believe
women have a right to be treated the same as men. This is clear when we
note that, for classical-liberal or libertarian feminism, equal
treatment under unjust law is not justice (McElroy 1991a, 3).

Same treatment under the law does not guarantee same outcomes.
Classical-liberal or libertarian feminists hold that women's rights are
not violated when citizens exercise their rights in ways that create
unequal outcomes (Epstein 2002, 30). A woman's rights are violated only
when she is interfered with coercively, that is, when there is, or is a
threat of, forced loss of freedom, property or life (which does not
serve as just restraint or compensation).

Equity feminism is a form of classical-liberal or libertarian
feminism that holds that feminism's political role is simply
to ensure that everyone's, including women's, right against coercive
interference is respected (Sommers 1994, 22). Wendy McElroy, an equity
feminist writes: “I've always maintained that the only reason I
call myself a feminist is because of [the] gov[ernment]. By which I
mean, if the government (or an anarchist defense assoc[iation])
acknowledged the full equal rights of women without paternalistic
protection or oppression, I would stop writing about women's
issues” (McElroy 1998c).

Feminism's political role involves assuring that women's right
against coercive interference by private individuals is recognized and
protected by the state (for example women's right against groping on
the street or rape within marriage (McElroy 1991a)), and that women's
right against coercive interference by the state itself is respected.
The latter means feminists should object to laws that restrict women's
liberty in particular (for example laws that limit women's employment
options (Taylor 1992, 228)), and laws that protect women in particular
(for example laws granting preferential treatment to women (Paul
1989)). Equity feminists suggest that this has been largely
accomplished in countries like the United States. Joan Kennedy Taylor
explains: feminism's “goal of equal political liberty for women
has been pretty much reached in the United States” (Taylor 2001;
see also Sommers 1994, 274).

2.2.1 Equity Feminism on the Oppression of Women

On the equity feminist view, the feminist slogan “the personal
is political” is accurate when the state fails to recognize
women's right against coercive interference, especially in women's
personal lives. So, for example, in some countries husbands have legal
control over their wives' persons and property. (Some equity feminists
argue that the women's movement in Western countries should not
hesitate to criticize countries in which this occurs (Sommers 2007).)
But in countries like the United States, where the right of women
against this sort of coercive interference is recognized and protected
by law, equity feminists hold that “the personal is no longer
political” (Lehrman 1997, 5; see also 21).

If an individual or group of individuals suffers sustained and
systematic denial of their rights, on the equity feminist view, we may
call them oppressed. Women were oppressed in the United States during
most of its first two centuries; people of African descent were
oppressed before the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. While the culture of
the United States supported this denial of rights, equity feminists
hold that the oppressor was the state (McElroy 1998c), which refused to
recognize and protect the right of women and people of African descent
to treatment as self-owners. When the state recognizes and protects
this right of women and Americans of African descent, they are no
longer oppressed, even if the culture disadvantages them. So, for
example, in a discussion of whether Muslim women are oppressed, Cathy
Young focuses on whether women's conformity with a religious tradition
that subordinates them is enforced by law. If it is, then women are
oppressed (Young 2006).

If women are to be described as currently oppressed in societies
like the United States, on the equity feminist view, one must show that
the state fails to protect women, as a group, from sustained and
systematic rights violations. Some feminists have argued that violence
against women is pervasive in societies like the United States so that,
even though the law recognizes women's right against it, that right is
insufficiently protected, and thus women endure sustained and
systematic denial of their right to bodily integrity (Dworkin 1991).
Equity feminists endeavor to refute this claim by showing that the
prevalence of violence against women has been exaggerated. For example
Rita Simon contests the claim that as many as 154 out of 1,000 women
have been raped. On her accounting, the number is closer to 19 per
1,000; and “rape is less common than other violent
crimes”(Simon 2002, 235). In addition, she claims, “the
criminal justice system does not ignore or make light of crimes against
females”(Simon 2002, 236). Katie Roiphe argues that date rape is
not a significant threat to women (Roiphe 1994). Concurring with
Roiphe, Cathy Young writes: “women have sex after initial
reluctance for a number of reasons … fear of being beaten up by
their dates is rarely reported as one of them” (Young 1992).

Women have also been said to be oppressed because their right to be
treated the same as men by employers, educational institutions, and
associations has been violated in a sustained and systematic way. That
is, some argue, women have been regularly denied the right to equal
access to opportunities because they are women. Equity feminists
generally hold that no rights are violated when employers, educational
institutions, public accommodations or associations discriminate
against women (see section 1.5). Nonetheless, equity feminists argue
that discrimination against women is not a serious problem. Diana
Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba argue that “complaints about
systematic economic discrimination against women simply do not square
with the evidence” (Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth 1999, xi; see also
2001). They argue that “women's wages and education levels are
closing the gap with those of men” (xii). In addition, Stolba and
Furchtgott-Roth claim that women have “surpassed men in
education” (23; see also 23–43). Christina Hoff Sommers concurs,
arguing that, rather than failing to provide girls with an education
equal to that of boys, our current educational system
disproportionately benefits girls (Sommers 2000, 20–23, 178).

Equity feminists argue that the differences in outcomes between
women and men can be explained, not by violence against women and sex
discrimination, but by differences in the preferences of women and men
(Epstein 2002, 33; Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth 1999, xii). “In
many cases where women remain behind men, personal choices explain
outcomes more readily than does overt discrimination” (Stolba and
Furchtgott-Roth 1999, xii). To be sure, classical-liberal or
libertarian feminists hold that women and men are sufficiently the same
that they have the “same political interests,” in
particular the interest in being treated as a self-owner (McElroy 2002,
14–15). But, for some equity feminists, biological differences between
the sexes largely explain the sex segregation in the workplace and in
family roles still common in countries like the United States (Epstein
2002; Lehrman 1997, 5, 31).

Other equity feminists think biological sex differences alone do not
explain this phenomenon (Young 2004). Women's preferences may reflect
the effects of socialization or incentives: for example women may be
socialized to prefer stereotypically female roles, or the rewards
associated with such roles for women may provide motivation for women
to take them up. But equity feminists hold that, because women are not
legally required, or actually forced in some other way, to choose
traditional roles, their choices are not coerced, and thus state
remedies are inappropriate. On the equity feminist view, a law
prohibiting women to become surgeons is coercive because it constitutes
a threat of loss of liberty or property. But if one is socialized to
prefer stay-at-home motherhood, or one discovers that one prefers to
stay home with children given the other real options, one may still
choose to become a surgeon without risking loss of liberty or property.
As Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth put it (using the
word“prevents” in a very strong sense):
“Nothingprevents women from choosing the surgical
specialty”(Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth 1999, 60; my emphasis).

2.2.2 Feminism's Nonpolitical Role

While equity feminists hold that feminism's political
task—securing for women the right to freedom from coercive
interference—is nearly completed, some equity feminists believe
that feminism has a nonpolitical role to play in women's
personal lives. In its nonpolitical role, feminism can help women to
develop character traits and strategies that will help them benefit
from their freedom; and it can help women to navigate personally among
their increasing options.

Karen Lehrman writes: “Men have typically held title to quite
a few traits that women can now put to good use. In addition to
ambition, assertiveness, and independence, there's also
decisiveness” (Lehrman 1997, 33; see also 62). Other character
traits emphasized by equity feminists
include“self-confidence” (Stevens et al. 2002, 255), being
able to think and argue independently (McElroy 1998a), and taking
responsibility for oneself (Taylor 1992, 86). Some equity feminists
suggest that feminism offers individual women and men the opportunity
for freedom from conformity with sex roles (Lehrman 1997, 6; Taylor
1992, 23–24).

Equity feminists recommend strategies for success for women in
education and employment as alternatives to state regulation. In male
dominated fields, for example, equity feminists recommend that women
mentor one another, or organize supportive associations, making use of
the techniques of 1960's feminism like consciousness-raising (Taylor
1992, 100–101). In What You Can Do About Sexual Harassment
When You Don't Want to Call the Cops, Joan Kennedy Taylor argues
that women can avoid sexual harassment or lessen its impact if they
learn to diffuse conflicts with men and understand the role of sexual
banter in male culture (Taylor 1999). Equity feminists also recommend
that women make full use of their right to contract by turning their
preferences—for example the preference for being paid and/or
promoted on the basis of one's job performance and not on the basis of
sexual favors—into rights through contract (Epstein 2002, 40;
Taylor 1992, 169).

Some equity feminists stress that women need not give up their
gender difference to benefit from their freedom (Lehrman 1997, 198). As
Karen Lehrman writes, “completing the feminist revolution…
primarily involves [women] completing their own personal
evolutions” (35). Lehrman quotes Elizabeth Cady
Stanton:“the strongest reason for giving woman a complete
emancipation from all forms of bondage of custom, dependence,
superstition …is the solitude and personal responsibility of her
own individual life” (Lehrman 1997, 201). An important part of
this individual life, on Lehrman's view, is navigating among sexual
difference and sameness in the personal construction of a satisfying
life.

2.2.3 Socially Conservative Equity Feminism

Some equity feminists are socially conservative (Morse 2001; Sommers
2000). To be sure, equity feminism as described here is a form of
classical-liberal or libertarian feminism. As such it involves the
claim that traditional values should not be imposed on citizens by the
state. For example, the state should not tax citizens to support
institutions that promote traditional values, nor should the criminal
or civil law create incentives for adherence to such values. But some
equity feminists hold that it is best when citizens voluntarily adhere
to traditional values. They hold that widespread voluntary adherence to
traditional values is conducive to well-being in society because
traditional values make possible the reproduction of independent and
“self-restraining citizens” which are “the basis of
free institutions, both economic and political” (Morse 2001,
161).

Socially conservative equity feminists do not take the classical
liberal or libertarian theory of the limits of state power to imply
endorsement of a libertine cultural ethos. So, for example, while
socially conservative equity feminists hold that the state should not
force citizens to accept traditional family forms (because individuals
have a right against such coercive interference), they hold that
society should strongly discourage disfavored ways of life and
encourage favored ones through noncoercive, nonstate means. Socially
conservative equity feminists hold that when feminism strays from its
political role of assuring equal rights and ventures into women's
personal lives it tends to discourage in women the kinds of delayed
gratification and self-sacrifice on which vital social institutions,
like the family, depend (Morse 2001, 133).

To be sure, there are political conservatives who take
equity feminism's claim that women and men should be treated the same
by the law as a rule of thumb. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is an example of
such a political conservative (Fox-Genovese 1991; 1996). The difference
between political conservatives who embrace the equity feminist account
of women's equality and socially conservative equity feminists is that
the former endorse the use of state power to promote traditional values
while the latter do not. Also, socially conservative equity feminists
hold that individuals' political rights derive from their status as
self-owners (Morse 2001, 57) while political conservatives hold that
citizens' political rights derive from their status as members of
communities (Fox-Genovese 1991, 9). In contemporary popular political
discourse it is often hard to distinguish these two, as they are in
political coalition. To appeal to both libertarian and socially
conservative constituencies, on occasion theorists help themselves to a
bit of both traditions. For example, Jennifer Roback Morse identifies
herself as a libertarian: “When the topic is the proper
relationship between the individual and the state, libertarianism is
pretty much the right path” (Morse 2001, 4). She tells us that
“the moral and ethical system underlying the polity must be
secured outside the political process itself” (124). But she also
makes the un-libertarian and politically conservative recommendation
that the state should intervene in personal relationships by making it
“costly to divorce” (164, see also 104, 111).

Cultural libertarianism is a form of classical liberalism or
libertarianism that is “concerned about constraints on
individual freedom from government as well as from traditionalist
familial, religious, and community institutions-the same civil
institutions that conservatives see as necessary for ordered liberty
to thrive”(Young 2007). Cultural libertarian feminism holds that
these institutions reflect the patriarchal nature of society and are
oppressive of women. Thus cultural libertarian feminism recognizes
sources of women's oppression other than the state (Presley 2000;
Johnson and Long 2005—see Other Internet Resources). As Charles
Johnson and Roderick Long put it, patriarchal culture and the state
are “interlocking systems of oppression” (Johnson and Long
2005—see Other Internet Resources), both of which should be
opposed by feminists. They explain: “There is nothing
inconsistent or un-libertarian in holding that women's choices under
patriarchal social structures can be sufficiently
‘voluntary,’ in the libertarian sense, to be entitled to
immunity from coercive legislative interference, while at the same
time being sufficiently ‘involuntary,’ in a broader sense,
to be recognized as morally problematic and as a legitimate target of
social activism” (Johnson and Long 2005—see Other Internet
Resources).

Calling this view “anarchist feminism,” Sharon Presley
writes: “What the anarchist feminists are calling for is a
radical restructuring of society, both in its public and private
institutions” (Presley 2000). Such feminists hold that much of
the oppression women currently suffer is noncoercive, however. Laws
against prostitution are coercive—the state can put a violator
in jail or force her to pay a fine. But on the cultural libertarian
feminist view, much of the pressure to conform to gender roles is not
coercive. Noncoercive oppression can be resisted, although it is often
not easy to do so. Cultural libertarian feminists hold that noncoercive
oppression should not be remedied by the state (see also Tomasi 2009).
As Presley and Kinsky explain, on the cultural libertarian view, to try
to remedy the noncoercive oppression of women with coercive state
action “just changes the sort of oppression, not the fact”
(Presley and Kinsky 1991, 78). This oppression should be opposed by a
nonviolent movement for feminist social change.

Cultural libertarian feminists target the patriarchal culture by,
for example, developing in individuals (especially women) the ability
to be independent. This involves enabling individuals to resist
authority and think for themselves (Presley 2001). Cultural libertarian
feminists also recommend the development of more deeply consensual
relationships and institutions (Heckert 2004—see Other Internet
Resources), relationships and institutions in which there is an
equality of authority (Long 2001—see Other Internet Resources).
While some equity feminists (see section 1.2) would applaud this work,
they would call it “personal,” reserving the term
“political” for the work of securing for women their right
against coercive interference. Equity feminist Wendy McElroy writes:
“I understand that there is a cultural form of feminism and many
women would still fight for improved prestige or status, and I wouldn't
criticis[e] them for doing so. It just wouldn't grip me. Guess I'm a
political animal after all”(McElroy 1998c). But cultural
libertarian feminists consider this work to be an integral part of a
larger political struggle for women's freedom.

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminists understand themselves as
heirs to the first generation of feminist political philosophers, for
example Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill, and John Stuart Mill
(Taylor 1992, 25–39); the first generation of feminist political
reformers in the United States, for example the abolitionist feminists
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sarah Grimke (McElroy 2002, 6–7); and the
tradition of 19th century anarchist feminism, including
figures such as Voltairine de Cleyre (McElroy 2002, 8; Presley 2000;
Presley and Sartwell 2005). Equity feminists stress the extent to which
these early thinkers and activists identify women's liberation with
equal respect for women's right against coercive interference (Stolba
and Furchtgott-Roth 2001, 1–2). Cultural libertarian feminists
emphasize the extent to which these thinkers and activists challenged
both coercive state power and the patriarchal culture (Presley 2000;
Johnson and Long 2005—see Other Internet Resources).

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminists hold that “the very
arguments that rightly led to the legal reforms affecting the status of
women during the 19th century militate against the demands
for reform from the late 20th century women's
movement” (Epstein 2002, 30). That is, they hold that the defense
of equal rights and independence for women promulgated by these early
feminists is incompatible with the tendency of the contemporary women's
movement to call on the state to improve the lives of women.

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminism requires same treatment of
women and men under just law. This means that sex discrimination by the
state, for example when the state functions as an employer, is
impermissible (Block 1991, 102; Epstein 2002, 34; Warnick 2003, 1608).
But classical-liberal or libertarian feminists oppose laws that
prohibit discrimination against women by nonstate actors, for example
in employment, education, public accommodations, or associations
(McElroy 1991a, 22–23; Epstein 1992). They hold that the interaction of
citizens should be subject to state control only to the extent
necessary to protect citizens' right against coercive interference.
Businesses violate citizens' right against coercive interference if
they steal from their customers or employees; associations violate it
if they extort their members; colleges violate it if they kidnap
students. But businesses do not violate this right if they refuse to do
business with women, pay women less for the same work, or create a
working environment that is hostile to them because of their sex.
Private educational institutions do not violate this right if they
refuse to educate girls or women, offer them an inferior education, or
create a learning environment that is hostile to them because of their
sex. Business and professional associations do not violate this right
if they refuse to admit women as members or make them feel unwelcome
because of their sex.

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminism, as described here,
clearly implies rejection of legal prohibition of private
discrimination in employment, education, public accommodations, and
associations. But in the literature one finds a range of views. Some
categorically reject any legal protection against private
discrimination (Taylor 1992, 62). Others accept basic protections such
as those afforded in U.S. law by the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and title IX of the Educational
Amendments of 1972; but reject more robust protections, such as
non-remedial affirmative action or comparable worth (Stolba and
Furchtgott-Roth 2001, 179; see also 107–108).

Classical-liberal or libertarian feminism holds that private
businesses, educational institutions, and associations are free to give
or withhold preferential treatment to women. But the state may not
treat women preferentially because the state must treat citizens the
same regardless of sex. Nor may the state require that private
businesses, educational institutions, or associations treat women
preferentially. This is because, on the equity feminist view, failure
to treat women preferentially is not a violation of anyone's right
against coercive interference. Examples of preferential treatment under
the law, which classical-liberal or libertarian feminists oppose,
include affirmative action in employment and education (Lehrman 1997,
25), comparable worth (Paul 1989), and advantages for women in the
legal treatment of custody and domestic violence (Simon 2002).

While equity feminists resist state remedies for private
discrimination against women, they also hold that such discrimination
is not currently a serious problem in countries like the United States
(see section 1.2.1). In addition, they argue, “even where
discrimination may exist, we find little, if any, evidence that
expanded government intervention would serve any useful
purpose”(Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth 1999, xii), and speculate
that freer markets would make whatever discrimination currently takes
place even more rare (McElroy 2002a, 187).

Why should individuals be treated as self-owners? Much of the
classical-liberal or libertarian feminist literature, especially the
equity feminist literature, is written for public policy and popular
audiences. Thus more attention is paid to implications and policy
applications than to philosophical justification. Several
justifications are mentioned in the literature. Kirp, Yudoff, and
Franks, for example, refer to Kant's categorical imperative and claim
that treating individuals as self-owners is what is meant by treating
individuals as ends in themselves ((Kirp et al. 1986, 13–14). Wendy
McElroy grounds her thought in the natural law tradition (McElroy
1998b). Some imply a perfectionist justification according to which the
perfection of the human being requires being treated as a self-owner
(Presley 2001).

By far the most common argument in the classical-liberal or
libertarian feminist literature is consequentialist. The argument says
that the political arrangements recommended by classical-liberalism or
libertarianism, as compared with the alternatives, will provide women
with more of what is good for them: for example safety, income and
wealth, choices, and options. Liberalizing guns laws will make women
safer (Stevens, et al. 2002); legalizing prostitution and porn will
improve the lives of women in those trades (Almodovar 2002; Strossen
2000) and open opportunities for others; freer markets will root out
discrimination against women and stimulate the proliferation of
amenities essential to working women, like daycare centers (Epstein
2002, 33; Paul 2002, 208–209; Stolba and Furchtgott-Roth 2001, 124,
180; Conway 1998). Indeed, some argue that liberalizing the market will
release such an “explosion of prosperity” that women will
not need help from a welfare state (Long 1997—see Other
Internet Resources).

Some critics take aim at the consequentialist argument offered in
support of classical-liberal or libertarian feminism. The
consequentialist argument says that the political arrangements
recommended by classical-liberalism or libertarianism, as compared
with the alternatives, will provide women with more of what is good
for them. Following Ashlie Warnick, we can distinguish the claim that
particular liberty-restricting policies are bad for women (and that
some liberty-enhancing policies are good for women) from the claim
that all liberty-restricting policies harm women, or that a minimal
state (or no state) would be better for women overall (Warnick
2003). It is surely possible to cite liberty-restricting policies that
are bad for women—laws limiting women's employment
options—and thus to cite liberty-enhancing policies that are
good for women—not having such laws. But it is also possible to
cite liberty-restricting policies that are good for women—for
example the legal prohibition against sex discrimination in
employment, education, and public accommodations (which
classical-liberal or libertarian feminists recommend dismantling (see
section 2.5)). Of course, if sex discrimination is rare, as some
classical-liberal or libertarian feminists contend (see section
2.2.1), laws prohibiting it will not produce much benefit. But, as
liberal feminists Deborah Rhode and Ann Cudd argue sex discrimination
is all too common (Rhode 1997, 156; Cudd 2006, 140–142). Think
also of the classical-liberal or libertarian feminist recommendation
that women and men be treated exactly the same by the state (see
sections 2.1 and 2.5). While different treatment can stigmatize and
entrench stereotypes, same treatment can disadvantage women if they
are not similarly situated to men—which, arguably, is the case
(Minow 1990). So the larger case—that all liberty-restricting
policies harm women, or that a minimal state (or no state) would be
better for women overall—has not been made convincingly (Warnick
2003). Another concern about the larger case is that much of the
support offered is speculative, for example Roderick Long's assertion
that “the explosion of prosperity that a libertarian society
would see would go a long way toward providing women with an economic
safety net more effective than any government welfare program”
(Long 1997—see Other Internet Resources).

In addition to the consequentialist argument, classical-liberal or
libertarian feminists offer an argument from principle. According to
this argument, regardless of the consequences, women and men should be
treated as self-owners with rights to property justly acquired and to
freedom from coercive interference because this is what they deserve as
ends in themselves, or because this is what moral insight teaches, or
because this is what their perfection requires (see section 2.6). In
short, the claim is that the dignity of women and men depends on their
being treated as self-owners.

Critics urge us to consider that all human beings are utterly
dependent on the care of others for many years at the start of life;
many come to need the care of others due to temporary or permanent
disability later in life; and many require care as they become infirm
at the end of life. Those who provide care for those who cannot care
for themselves will also find themselves dependent on others for
material support. These are enduring features of any human community.
Thus all individuals have a high priority interest in receiving care
when it is needed (Kittay 1999; Nussbaum 2000). As liberal feminist
Susan Okin argues, a theory that ignores this interest must assume that
there is a “realm of private life in which the reproductive and
nurturant needs of human beings are taken care of” (Okin 1989,
75). This assumption hides the fact that it is women who typically
satisfy this interest, and do so often without pay and at great
sacrifice to themselves. This renders classical-liberalism or
libertarianism, including its feminist versions, blind to the nature of
obligations to, and entitlements of, children and others who require
care. In addition, because caring labor is hidden from view, it becomes
impossible to evaluate the justice of the arrangements under which the
interest in receiving care is commonly satisfied. This suggests that
freedom from coercive interference fails to capture what human dignity
requires. At the very least, that dignity requires the right to care
when one is unable to care for oneself and the right to a share of
resources if one is charged with providing care for those who require
it.

In a related criticism, Okin argues that classical-liberal or
libertarian views are self-refuting. If individuals have a right to
control their bodies and own the fruits of their labor, then
women—who presumably make children from resources that have been
given to them freely or were bought by them—own their children
(Nozick 1974; Okin 1989, 80, 81; see also Jeske 1996; and Andersson
2007). But if women own their children, and everyone begins as a
child, then no one owns herself (Okin 1989, 85).

Jennifer Roback Morse, herself a classical-liberal or libertarian
feminist, concedes: “I think it is well to admit… that our
inattention to family life and community responsibility has left
libertarians open to the charge that we do not care very much about
these matters” (Morse 2001, 28).

Liberal criticism of the argument from principle begins by noting
that the liberties championed by classical-liberals and libertarians
are valuable because of what they make it possible for individuals to
be and do. But it is not liberties alone which facilitate our being and
doing what we value. We require also, at least, adequate material
resources, genuine opportunities, and standing as an equal in society
(Rawls 1971; Rawls 1993). What is needed is a basic structure of
society, including property rules, that secures these. Thus freedom
from coercive interference fails to capture what human dignity
requires.

Critics have also taken aim at the treatment of oppression in
classical-liberal or libertarian feminism. Recall that equity feminism
holds that women are oppressed when the state fails to protect them, as
a group, from sustained and systematic rights violations. Recall also
that for equity feminists the only rights that create coercible duties
are the rights to justly acquired property and freedom from coercive
interference. Equity feminists argue that, in western countries like
the United States, women are not oppressed because the state protects
these rights of women. It should be conceded that much violence against
women which was, in the past, tolerated or condoned is now
unambiguously prohibited. But, critics contend, violence against women
remains all too common in western countries, and thus it is premature
to suggest that women are not oppressed, that is, are not effectively
protected against sustained and systematic rights violations (Rhode
1997, 120; see also Cudd 2006, 93ff).

As we have seen, cultural libertarian feminists criticize equity
feminism for ignoring significant, though perhaps more subtle,
constraints on women's individual freedom that stem “from
traditionalist familial, religious, and community institutions”
(Young 2007). Cultural libertarian feminists recommend social activism,
not state power, as a remedy for this oppression. Liberal feminists
disagree, arguing that state power is legitimately used to ensure the
fair value of women's liberties and opportunities. Think here,
for example, of the liberal feminist claim that workplaces should be
structured by law so that care-givers are not disadvantaged, given the
“traditionalist familial, religious and community” pressure
on women to assume caregiving responsibilities for dependent family
members (see section 1.1.4). Think also of the liberal feminist claim
that the education of girls must ensure the development of their
autonomy (see section 1.1.4).

As we have seen, while cultural libertarian feminists are culturally
liberal, some classical-liberal feminists are culturally conservative.
They content that classical-liberalism or libertarianism must call for
voluntary adherence to traditional morality because that morality is
necessary for the reproduction of citizens capable of independence and
self-restraint. Critics respond that the traditional morality
championed by cultural conservatives disadvantages women and girls in
myriad ways. Think here, for example, of how the traditional nuclear
family places on women a disproportionate and disadvantaging share of
the burdens of reproduction (Okin 1989). Socially conservative equity
feminists are untroubled by this disadvantage as long as it is
voluntarily chosen. Some nonliberal feminists argue that the fact that
a political philosophy grounded in the value of voluntary choice is
compatible with traditions and institutions that disadvantage women
shows that feminism should not be so grounded (Jaggar 1983, 194;
Yuracko 2003, 25–26). Liberal feminists embrace the value of voluntary
choice for feminism, but argue that women often cannot exercise it,
because sexist socialization and a homogeneous culture render them
incapable of critically assessing their preferences and imagining life
otherwise (Meyers 2004; Cornell 1998; Cudd 2006). Indeed, if critical
thinking is necessary for freedom but corrosive of tradition, cultural
conservatives must be wary of freedom. Thus there is a tension within
culturally conservative equity feminism between the emphasis on
voluntariness and the value of tradition. (For related criticism, see
Loudermilk 2004, 149–172).

To summarize, critics suggest that classical-liberal or libertarian
feminism is not adequately supported by a consequentialist case; fails
to recognize our obligations to those who cannot care for themselves;
hides from view the way in which the work of care is distributed in
society; denies that state power should be used to ensure equality of
opportunity for women and women's equal standing in society; and
(cultural libertarianism excepted) is uncritical of traditional social
arrangements that limit and disadvantage women. For reasons such as
these, some have argued that classical-liberal or libertarian feminism
counts as neither feminist nor liberal (Minnich 1998; see also Freeman
1998).

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